SWTOR update 2.1 is now live, and has fleshed out the game with some rather welcome customisation options. The new Appearance Designer Kiosk allows you to go into much greater detail than ever before when designing your characters, you can now customise the colours and dyes of your character's armour, and there's a whole new playable race as you can take to the action as the Cathar.

In a post on the official forums, BioWare heads Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka have revealed that there have been layoffs in the development team for MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic. At the moment the number of redundancies is unclear, but early reports suggest the number is fairly significant.

With SWTOR several months into its lifespan now, the real test of BioWare's MMO is going to be just how an attractive proposition it will be in the long run now the honeymoon period is over. According to BioWare’s Daniel Erickson, the company are doing "anything and everything" to try and keep players logging into the service.

Tauntaun In-Game Pet Up For Grabs As Well

In a move to create more fanfare towards the recent 1.2 Legacy Patch, BioWare have announced that they will be handing out free game time to current and former subscribers of Star Wars: The Old Republic. While those with level 50 characters or those who cancelled their subscription will automatically qualify, those with active subscriptions yet to reach the level cap have until the 22nd to claim their free game time.

Servers Down For Eight Hours Tomorrow

Star Wars: The Old Republic will receive its second major update tomorrow in the form of the 'Legacy' patch. Version 1.2 marks the debut of the eponymous Legacy system, which allows players to link characters via a family tree, unlocking various gameplay benefits in the process. On top of that, the update will add a new Flashpoint, Operation and Warzone along with new crew skills and a customisable GUI. Carl has already rounded up the major changes in an earlier post, and we've got the full patch notes after the break if you're interested.

Servers will go down between 6am to 2pm GMT in order to facilitate the update.

BioWare plan to tempt a few more players into Star Wars: The Old Republic this weekend by launching a free trial that runs from this Thursday to next Monday. You'll be able to download and play the trial via the official site once it kicks off at 05:00 GMT tomorrow morning.

There are a few restrictions to be aware of, however, which are the same as the 7 day friends trial extended to existing consumers. Full details below.

Goes Live In April

BioWare have unleashed details of the next game update for their MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, spilling the beans on the new high-level group content, and how the Legacy system will affect player progression, along with other improvements during the SWTOR Guild Summit in Austin, Texas.

BioWare Co-Founder, EA VP and BioWare Austin General Manager Dr. Greg Zeschuk has had a lot on his plate over the last few months. However, SWTOR is out now, although Zeschuk reckons he and the team might have don a few things differently with the launch if they could go back in time and have another crack at it.

"Unless You Are Prepared To Queue To Play"

The fact that some Star Wars: The Old Republic players have had to virtually queue for up to two hours in order to play online is no secret, and the situation has become so dire that BioWare has officially warned players to avoid creating new characters on high population servers. BioWare has also publicly identified the main offenders that are reaching their population caps so you can steer clear. We've got the full details below.

New Content, Guilds, PvP

If you're the lucky owner of an Early Game Access pass for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware's sprawling, ambitious MMO is available right now. We don't expect to hear from you for quite a while. For the rest of us mere mortals, the game is set to release later this month, but Bioware is already hard at work on post-release content to keep their growing fanbase sated and content.